Re-admission Penalties

Under our current system of medical care, doctors and hospitals make more money if patients don’t get well. Medicare, for example, spends $17 billion on patients who are discharged from the hospital but must come back. This fall, the federal government will start charging hospitals a penalty for those re-admissions, and five medical centers in Virginia will pay the maximum as Sandy Hausman reports.
http://virginiapublicradio.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/hospitalpenalties1.mp3This story was produced in partnership with Virginia Public Radio, NPR and Kaiser Health News.